Social Media Comment

The official William & Mary social media outlets (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, Instagram, LinkedIn, and W&M Blogs) are where students, parents, alums, faculty, staff, and others can learn about and enjoy some of the great things happening at the university.

We encourage our fans and followers to post, comment and interact with others, and expect that remarks will be on-topic and respectful of the rights and opinions of others. We strive to make our social media community reflective of W&M’s values while supporting free speech protected by the First Amendment.

William & Mary reserves the right, but is not obligated, to remove comments that:

• are off-topic
• are profane, violent, or obscene
• encourage or support discrimination against protected classes
• are duplicate or spam
• advocate illegal activity
• are misleading or contain falsehoods and/or inaccurate information
• libel, incite, threaten, or make ad hominem attacks on W&M students, employees, guests, or other individuals

We also do not permit messages selling products or promoting commercial, political campaigns or candidates, or other ventures unless we deem them related to the university, its members, or its operation.

Posted comments do not necessarily reflect the opinions or policies of the university. In certain situations, the poster, as well as the content, may be reported to authorities, depending on the nature of the content or as required by law. As W&M employees, when those who manage university social media accounts become aware of sexual violence involving a student or occurring on campus, they must report it to the Title IX Coordinator.

All content and posts are bound by the Terms and Community Guidelines for that service:

• Facebook Statement of Rights and Responsibilities 
• Twitter Terms of Service 
• YouTube Terms of Service and Community Guidelines 
• Flickr Terms of Service and Community Guidelines 
• Instagram Terms of Use and Community Guidelines
• LinkedIn User Agreement and Community Guidelines

Additional options for individual users:

• Hiding or reporting comments may also be an action you can take. Review the Terms and Community Guidelines for the service and see what options are available to you.
• You can always choose to express your disagreement or state your own point of view in a way that is consistent with the above policies.
• If you sense a comment is written with the express purpose of provoking an argument, denying the comment the attention it seeks is sometimes the best course of actiEmployees'ees' social media usage is expected to comply with the Virginia Department of Human Resources (pdf), and all applicable university policies.

If you have any concerns about the content posted on one of our social media outlets, please [[creative,email us]]. We welcome all of your feedback and thank you for your help in creating a safe, vibrant, and respectful online community.